June 2

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. - Proverbs 3:17.

HOW greatly is religion libelled! It is commonly represented as unfriendly to happiness, and at variance with every thing like pleasure; and nothing can be more injurious than such a representation, especially to the young. But nothing is more groundless than this charge; for, so far from religion making our pleasures less, it was designed to make them infinitely greater. And as it was thus designed, so it is adequate for this purpose also, and inspires us with everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, and enables us to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; for

“’Tis religion that can give

Sweetest pleasures while we live;

’Tis religion must supply

Solid comforts when we die.”

The God whom we serve is the God of all comfort, and he must be, surely, able to make a man truly happy; and is it therefore reasonable to suppose that he will suffer one who neglects and hates him to be happier than one who serves him? To realize that God is my Father, that heaven is my home, that all things are working together for my good, and that death will be to me the gate of life, must greatly tend to promote and increase my enjoyment of the beauties of nature, the bounties of Providence, and the intercourse of life.

How many, if appealed to, would tell us that they were strangers to real pleasure, so long as they continued strangers to Christ; but, since they have known him, their common mercies have been sweetened, their very sorrows have been blessed, and they prefer their own humble condition to all the glory and goodness of the world. They have found his service perfect freedom. His yoke has been easy and his burden light. If religion is a yoke, they daily bless God for the same; if it is a burden, it is the burden of wings to a bird, which enable it to rise and soar aloft and possess the skies; and if the Scriptures are allowed to decide, and they contain the judgment of the only wise and true God, and cannot be broken, do they not say, “My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed; behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart”? and here the Wise Man declares that “her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”